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The Longer the War, the Bigger the Lies

Frank Rich, who writes an op-piece in the NY Times weekly, has long been a strident critic of the Bush Administration.

His piece this week, "The Longer the War, the Bigger the Lies", is no exception - other than that it is perhaps even more critical on a number of levels:

"Rarely has a television network presented a more perfectly matched double feature. President Bush's 9/11 address on Monday night interrupted ABC's "Path to 9/11" so seamlessly that a single network disclaimer served them both: "For dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, as well as time compression."

No kidding: "The Path to 9/11" was false from the opening scene, when it put Mohamed Atta both in the wrong airport (Boston instead of Portland, Me.) and on the wrong airline (American instead of USAirways). It took Mr. Bush but a few paragraphs to warm up to his first fictionalization for dramatic purposes: his renewed pledge that "we would not distinguish between the terrorists and those who harbor or support them." Only days earlier the White House sat idly by while our ally Pakistan surrendered to Islamic militants in its northwest frontier, signing a "truce" and releasing Al Qaeda prisoners. Not only will Pakistan continue to harbor terrorists, Osama bin Laden probably among them, but it will do so without a peep from Mr. Bush."

No only does Bush get a "spray" but Cheney and Condi too. The piece isn't nuanced - but it certainly makes some telling and powerful points. Read it all here.

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